Department Mission

Applied psychology creates understanding and solutions to enhance lives and address societal problems. In our research, we use science to generate knowledge that guides action and frames policy in the contexts and settings of daily life. We take our questions to neighborhoods, businesses and non-profits, schools and families who are diverse in ethnicity, class, gender, culture, age, and disability status. This makes ours a science that is often collaborative not only with other researchers nationally and internationally, but also with people in the settings where they live and work. Through collaboration, we endeavor for our community collaborators to use and sustain what we have learned together.

We educate both graduates and undergraduates about human behavior, about the theories in which research is rooted, and about how to actively critique the assumptions, methods, and ethics that are a part of generating and using psychological knowledge. Along with our research, our work with students reflects our commitment to realizing human and organizational possibilities to their fullest.